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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25394662">very good bad thing we found</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutlasses/pseuds/cutlasses'>cutlasses</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bisexual Jack Sparrow - Freeform, F/M, Honestly everyone is bisexual but he's the focus here, Jack's point of view, Multi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 01:56:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,328</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25394662</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutlasses/pseuds/cutlasses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Sparrow, a man in love with the sea, falls in love with Angelica, a different force of nature. He won't admit it, maybe because he doesn't know how.</p><p>The story of how they meet — how they find and lose each other, again and again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Angelica Malon/Jack Sparrow, Hector Barbossa/Jack Sparrow (past/background)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. i. everywhere</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><strong>content warnings:</strong> canon-typical deaths, violence, fights, alcohol, drunkenness, and mentions of such; period-relevant mention of the slave trade.<br/><strong>regarding what I take as canon:</strong><br/>I am obsessive and made a long timeline for myself, only taking the movies 1-4 into canon consideration, and I will pick and choose from 5 as I want to. The book canon I didn't take into consideration, but I did take a couple of concepts from it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> 14 JANUARY 1743 </em>
</p><p>     “I can take you with me.”</p><p>     Angelica frowns, opens her mouth like she’s about to say something. But she stops, says nothing instead. Her eyes wander around the room, like maybe she’ll find whatever words she wants to say written on the walls.</p><p>     The thing is: Jack doesn’t want to <em> save </em> her. He’s not the saving people type. He knows he’s selfish, he looks out for himself first. Always has, always has had to. But he believes in something: the same way he believes in his freedom, he sees it as everyone’s right. Sure, not everyone knows what to do with it, and others are so attached to rules that they never chase what freedom could mean to them. Their loss, not his. But for some reason, he feels <em> wrong </em> about Angelica not wanting to chase it, about her not giving herself the option. He’s known her for six days, but there’s a feeling worming itself into his brain like a parasite, that if he doesn’t try to pose to her the option of adventure he’ll be making a grave mistake. Jack doesn’t know how he feels about fate, but maybe this feeling is a taste of it.</p><p>     He sighs. He’s good at convincing people, good at guessing at what they want. But no one can be convinced to follow what they want if they won’t accept that they want it, and Angelica seems to be telling herself that she doesn’t want anything — but it’s so, <em> so </em> clear that she does. She reminds him, annoyingly, of himself, if just one or two things in his life had been different. Well, more than one or two things, sure, but if there’s one thing Jack recognizes for sure in her is the same hunger he has, every day, for the world to give him something new. </p><p>     “You’ve your doubts about this whole thing, love. I can see it. When you talk about the future you choose your words like if you happen to pick the wrong one, everything in it will fall apart. Deliberately,” he adds, and he’s a little proud of getting to the right word. “But when you talk of something else, of adventure… your eyes open wider.”</p><p>     “I’ve made my decision already, and it is sufficiently endangered by your presence.”</p><p>     “So you’ve told me. But I would like to point out that you started it, darling. You kissed me, and then everything else happened.”</p><p>     Angelica scoffs, and Jack can’t help but shoot her a jaunty smile. He takes a step back, to recalibrate. He’s used to telling people the things they want to hear, but he’s certainly not doing that right now. He’s out of his element, telling a truth with no padding,with no teasing tone, trying to convince her that she’s out of her element, too. So he starts again. “Love, are you willing to commit yourself, for the rest of your life, to something that you’ve got doubts about?”</p><p>     “...It’s impossible to be completely certain about anything in this life, Jack. That’s naive.”</p><p>     “Is it? Or are <em> you </em>? Isn’t this the only thing you’ve ever known? Isn’t that the only reason you want to go through with this? You could have done this two, three years ago, if I recall correctly what you told me. So you’ve put it off.”</p><p>     “Jack,” she says. It’s a warning tone. It means Jack-don’t-do-that, Jack-don’t-say-that, Jack-that’s-stupid, and it’s been used by so many people before her for so many reasons. Unfortunately for her and quite fortunately for him, he’s learned to ignore it and it rarely ever works. It doesn’t work this time, either.</p><p>     “I’m serious,” he responds, in the most genuine tone he can manage. Contrary to popular belief, he’s capable of being genuine. He just doesn’t manage it often enough to know how to sound like it. “What are you so afraid of that you’ve been avoiding it, if it’s something you honest and truly want to do? What’s keeping you?”</p><p>     “You want me to throw away my life. Waste <em> years </em> of it. On a mistake,” she says, and of course he knows <em> he </em> is the mistake. But he thinks, hopes even, that maybe he doesn’t have to be. (He’s sure he often is. He knows that much.)</p><p>     “If you don’t truly want this life, love, you’ve already wasted them.”</p><p>     Angelica says nothing, and just sets her jaw. But just as there are no words of agreement, there are no words of condemnation, so Jack keeps trying.</p><p>     “I’m going back. I told you when I’m leaving tomorrow. But let me ask you this: do you know for certain that this is what you want? Have you ever?”</p><p>     She frowns for long enough that he’s about to give up hope of convincing her, but instead she responds, “No.” It’s a defeated sort of no, one that’s given up on arguing, and she sighs. “Jack, no, I <em> don’t </em> know. Do you think if I knew for sure, I’d have — I — of course I don’t know.”</p><p>     “Then come with me. Now, or — or in the morning. Whenever you want. I have a ship and a crew. If you want to go somewhere else, we can take you.”</p><p>     “You know this is the only place I’ve ever known, right?”</p><p>     He can’t help but tease her. “What, there’s no places you’ve dreamed of?”</p><p>     “I’ve dreamed of everywhere.”</p><p>     Jack understands. </p><p>     He offers her his hand. “You’re in luck, love. Everywhere is where I go.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. ii. captain's hat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> 2 FEBRUARY 1743 </em>
</p><p>     A wise woman had taught Jack once that some people were dangerous not because of anything they could do, but because of the effect they could have on you: they were like gravity, pulling you towards them whether they realized it or not. And from the moment he met her, he knew that’s what Angelica was going to be for him: dangerous, like the call of the sea, and just as alluring. </p><p>     (Jack has often said that his first and only love is the sea. To compare her to it feels like perhaps it should be wrong, or misleading in some sort of way. But it feels right, and he can’t understand quite why. He figures that everyone compares people to the sea all the time, and there’s no reason for him to be any different. Hehas never loved anyone, he’s decided, because he loves ideas, he loves things. His ship, adventure, the sea, his hat; things like that. Nothing more, nothing less.)</p><p>     It’s February and they are a third of the way to Tortuga, waiting patiently until the warm winds of the Caribbean wash over them and they know they’ve made it. The first day, Gibbs claimed Angelica would be bad luck, but they’ve had a rare, storm-free journey and captured a sizable prize with no fighting — a lovely, reasonable captain. Oh, Jack loves the reasonable types. He avoids a fight whenever he can, because he’s not stupid and doesn’t see the need to risk an arm or a leg when it’s not really needed.</p><p>     Angelica has been sleeping in the map room, stringing up a hammock in the corner. She’s not calling him ‘Jack.’ She calls him Sparrow, much like the rest of the crew, and seems to both avoid him and follow him simultaneously. Jack figures he doesn’t mind. It’s not the first time someone he’s slept with has chosen to ignore it afterwards. </p><p>***</p><p>
  <em> 6 FEBRUARY 1743 </em>
</p><p>     Jack is a people watcher. He’s a world-watcher, really, because that’s the way he can build up his knowledge. He doesn’t really understand people, as much as he claims to, only himself. But he’s figured it’s a decent enough strategy to extrapolate what he’d do to other people, and it works at least half the time. Maybe more. When Angelica is lost in thought, Jack likes to observe her out of the corner of his eye, like a bird keeping an eye out for predators. He’ll sit in the map room, pretending that he’s plotting a course, and watch her pick up a book from the shelves she’d been surprised to see. </p><p>     (“I didn’t know pirates could read,” she’d said, with a raised eyebrow and a mocking tone and a delightfully foreign cadence of the letter T. “Oi, maybe some of us are intellectuals,” he protested, with what he hoped was a winning grin. “Not all of us are illiterate.” Two seconds of her unamused stare broke down his facade and he rolled his eyes. “Fine, or maybe the books are already there when you steal the boat. I <em> can </em> read, though. My father made sure of that.” And then she’d smiled, and even though it was small, it was a real smile, and she rolled her eyes and walked away and Jack stared at the book titles for five minutes because he didn’t know what else to do.) </p><p>     Tonight she’s picked up a book in French.</p><p>     “You can read that?”</p><p>     “You can’t? I thought you were an intellectual,” she says, a mischievous smile dancing on her face.</p><p>     “Mm. Not quite.”</p><p>     “A shame.”</p><p>     “Indeed.” He kicks up his feet on another chair and drops the calipers on the map. “I know English. I know enough Spanish to ask… well, enough things. I know what words <em> sound </em> like they’re French. Oh, and I’ve been to Singapore.”</p><p>     “That last one isn’t a language, Sparrow. There’s Dutch traders there, if that’s what you mean.”</p><p>     “Tidak bersalah.”</p><p>     “...What?”</p><p>     “Innocent. In Malay. ‘S all I know how to say.”</p><p>     She laughs, and it sounds genuine. “What, because that’s what you are? Innocent?”</p><p>     Jack takes off his hat in the most dramatic way possible, holds it to his chest, and bows. “Of course I’m innocent, <em> milady </em>,” he says, extending the ‘milady’ so it’s unnecessarily, annoyingly long. “How could I not be? I’m a god-fearing pirate, ‘s what I am.”</p><p>     She’s standing in front of him, now, half-smiling, which makes Jack wonder if he’s endearing himself to her with his antics. Sometimes it works. She swipes the hat from his hand, puts it on her head. “Some captain you are, only words you know are for getting out of trouble. Thought you all were a lot more bloodthirsty.”</p><p>     “Not all of us, love,” he says, grinning up at her. That is something he means; bloodthirst doesn’t run in his veins. In the dress and the hat, she looks wonderfully dashing. “Our reputation precedes us. Most ships would love to get back home with all their lives intact and no cargo, rather than with their ship a bloody mess and forty dead men. We all win. Me, most of all. And I love winning. Love me some easy money. Oh, I miss the Pearl. Easy prizes to be had with her. Easy to see the fear in a man’s eyes when he sees the ship he’s seen in his nightmares.”</p><p>     “The Pearl?”</p><p>     “Have you heard of the Black Pearl?”</p><p>     “Vaguely, I think. Scary ship, no?”</p><p>     “She was <em> my </em> ship. I’m going to get her back,” he says, and tries not to get a faraway look in his eyes. </p><p>     “Why don’t you have it?”</p><p>     “Mutiny.”</p><p>     When she says, “That bad a captain?” it doesn’t hurt as much as he thinks it would have. The knife-sharpness that follows every word she says is there, but it’s softer, like she wants him to know she doesn’t mean it.  Jack doesn’t know how to respond, so he grins and takes his feet off the table instead. Without another word, she takes off the hat and puts it back on his head, adjusting it so it’s just right. She stays close, looking at him as if she’s analyzing her handiwork, and nods. “It suits you,” she says. </p><p>     Everything she’s ever said is definitive, like she wants to tell the world she belongs and it can’t take that away from her. Jack admires that. She doesn’t know her place in the world, but she <em> acts </em> like she does. He just doesn’t know, and sure, he tries to figure it out, but he can’t seem to convince anyone else that he does just like that. Before he knows exactly what he’s doing, he says “Angelica,” except somehow it’s a burning question that requires an answer; he hears her “Yes?” and the way she says it charms him; he reaches a hand up to her face to pull her in for a kiss and they kiss, stuck in an awkward pose until she has the brilliant idea of sitting on his lap so she does, and he puts his hands on her hips and they kiss like they’ve been starving for it. He thinks he has been.</p><p>     When they finally pull away and breathe, he’s the first to speak. “And here I thought you were avoiding me,” he says, as playfully as he can when he wants nothing more than to do it all again. He runs his hand through her hair as he waits for a response.</p><p>     “I was,” is her answer, and she’s not sheepish or angry, just matter-of-fact. As she is. “I figured this would happen.”</p><p>     Jack raises his eyebrows and gives Angelica his best impish grin. “You did?”</p><p>     She shifts on his lap, hands on his shoulders, and sighs. “I did. Because I like you.”</p><p>     “Really? I thought you didn’t like pirates, love.”</p><p>     “I’ll make an exception.”</p><p>     “I’m honored,” he says, and smiles stupidly. Angelica doesn’t seem to mind. She brushes a beaded lock of hair away from Jack’s face and when he looks into his eyes for a second he doesn’t mind it like he thinks he would. In the candlelight, her eyes glimmer and glow like they’re the flame itself. He shifts her closer to him and kisses her jaw one, two, three times. Being this close to her is as intoxicating as downing a whole bottle of rum, or maybe more, and he hasn’t felt anything like this, not exactly like this, ever before.</p><p>     “Jack…” she whispers in his ear.</p><p>     “Yes?”</p><p>     “Is the door closed? I don’t remember.”</p><p>     “Is the — yes, it is, why?”</p><p>     “Mm.” Angelica grabs his face and kisses him, more intensely than he expects, pulling him in the same way the winds of a hurricane take everything in their path. His brain feels like it’s burning, like a fever that will never kill him, and his hands start to wander and so do hers, and they are the only souls in existence, in the world, among the stars.</p><p>     “You know, if we go to the captain’s quarters, there’s—”</p><p>     “Shut up, Jack.”</p><p>     He takes her advice.</p><p>***</p><p>     Angelica starts calling him Jack in front of everyone again, and they both hide and don’t-hide that they sleep together five more times before they make it to Tortuga. </p><p>     Gibbs raises his eyebrow at Jack one morning, asking without words, a thing only really Gibbs can do with him, and Jack shrugs. “Are you really surprised?” he asks, focusing his gaze on a cloud behind the horizon so Gibbs won’t look him in the eye.</p><p>     “Can’t say I am.”</p><p>     “She’s good luck, I think.”</p><p>     “You know that’s bias, Jack.”</p><p>     “No, it’s different. I can’t explain.”</p><p>     “Whatever you say, Cap’n,” Gibbs says, with a friendly slap on Jack’s shoulder. Jack grimaces all the same and watches him walk away.</p><p>     “I mean it,” is Jack’s defense, but only under his breath, once Gibbs is out of earshot.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. iii. tortuga</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> 18 FEBRUARY 1743 </em>
</p><p>     “Here it is, in all its glory,” Jack says, with a wide grin, presenting Tortuga proudly for the boisterous port town it is. Well, ‘proudly’ is an overstatement, but there’s no way to let anyone love Tortuga that isn’t pure confidence in it, so that’s what he puts down.</p><p>     Angelica raises an eyebrow. Jack puts down his arm, fidgeting. <em> Right </em>.</p><p>     “It’s the perfect haven for scoundrels like you and — well, perhaps just me,” he tries again, leading the way in.</p><p>     “People live here?”</p><p>     “Sure. Why wouldn’t they? Least lawful place in the Caribbean. No one here to tell you what to do.”</p><p>     “And we’ll be here for how long?”</p><p>     Jack shrugs. “Couple days. Some supplies we’ve got to buy. I have a man I’ve got to meet. The crew have errands they need to run. We’ve got to get <em> you </em> a proper sword,” and he turns back to face her, walking backwards, as he says the last sentence.</p><p>     Angelica’s eyes light up at that, but she still doesn’t say anything. Her eyebrow is still raised, and she seems focused on something behind Jack. He turns around and he figures she could be looking either at the woman chasing a muddy pig, at the man hitting another one with a bottle, or at the man drunkenly trying to climb a balcony and failing miserably. </p><p>     Jack turns back to her and smiles again. “Tortuga has its charms.”</p><p>     “And where are we going to now?”</p><p>     “The Faithful Bride. You and I need a drink.”</p><p>***</p><p>     Angelica warms up to Tortuga after one drink, which she nurses for a long time. She’s not drunk in the slightest, but she seems to have used her time to take everything in, perhaps even get used to it. </p><p>     “Where does one stay, in a place like this?”</p><p>     “Here, usually. They have rooms upstairs. They’re fair enough. I sometimes do.”</p><p>     “And when you don’t?”</p><p>     “I know a nicer place. Less rowdy. Here’s nice to get good and drunk, get in a fight, all the like, but I like some peace and quiet and such when I sleep. I know a place for that, the Waiting Lantern inn. I know the woman who owns it.”</p><p>     “You <em> know </em> her?” she says, playful.</p><p>     “Not like that. She <em> knows </em> my father,” he says, and stands up. “Come on. We’ll swipe a cutlass for you from the forgotten ones at the door. Men leave without their swords all the time. No one’s going to miss them, there’s more swords than pirates here. No use in you sailing if you can’t fight to save your life.”</p><p>     She follows him; Jack gets the sword as promised, and he leads her to the less-crowded tavern, but right into the empty barn first. It’s afternoon, so it’s still light enough to see clearly inside, and will stay the same for a couple of hours still. He holds the sword by the blade, points the handle at her.</p><p>     “You know how to hold a sword properly?”</p><p>     “No. You know exactly how I grew up,” she says, unamused, but still takes it.</p><p>     “Fair enough.” Jack draws his own sword, holds his hand up in front of her. “Like this,” he says, and waits until she holds hers the same. “It goes in front of you, around the level of… your stomach. So you defend all the squishy organs inside you quite nicely. And you want to try and slash the enemy, not stab them. If you try to slash you have more space to work with.”</p><p>     “What if I learned how to use this and then used it to kill you?”</p><p>     Jack shrugs. “There’s a ridiculously high number of people in this world that want me dead. I’m still alive. So you’d better have more luck than any of them, love.”</p><p>     Angelica laughs, clear and bright like the sound of a bell. Jack wants more of it. “Alright. Slash, not stab,” she says.</p><p>     “Yes. And look at my feet. One in front of the other, like <em> this </em>. Helps you move faster.” </p><p>     Jack is not the best swordsman in the world, but he knows enough that he’s still alive. He’s got experience and has swung a cutlass since before he turned twelve, so he feels qualified enough for the lesson. What he isn’t prepared for is for how much he’s enjoying the sight of Angelica, focused completely on what she’s doing, wielding a sword like it’s everything she’s made for. She picks it up fast, and when they spar she gives Jack a run for his money; she’s a natural, that much is clear, because she’s not afraid. How wonderful it would be, Jack thinks, to be as fearless as she clearly is. He envies it, and is fascinated by it all the same.</p><p>    By the time the sun is no longer in the sky, he’s telling her that she’s good but shouldn’t get cocky about it and she’s snapping back with an “oh, like you are?” so they end up kissing against the corner of the barn.</p><p>     “You know,” she says, when they pause, “we can just get a room, no?”</p><p>     “Just the one? Scandalous. You not insisting on two,” he smirks.</p><p>     “It’s a little too late to worry about scandal, I think, considering where we are.”</p><p>     “I never worry about scandals, anyway,” and he pulls away from her. She takes a second to fix her bangs, and once she’s done he takes her hand, kisses it, lets go. “Follow me, then.”</p><p>***</p><p>
  <em> 19 FEBRUARY 1743 </em>
</p><p>     Jack wakes up before she does, because he’s facing the window when the sun comes up. She looks peaceful, wearing his shirt, half-curled up, facing him with her head on top of his arm. He can’t feel that arm very much, so he moves to adjust himself, freeing up his whole forearm and as she stirs and moves her head a little closer to him in her sleep. His hand hovers for a bit, waiting, unsure.</p><p>     He slowly puts his hand on her shoulder, one finger at a time, like all of them at once would scare her. And of course it doesn’t scare her, but maybe it scares him, just a little.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. iv. mercy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>JULY 1743</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Angelica and Jack have turned into a single word together. Jack-Angelica. Sparrow-Angelica. Angelica-and-Jack. Always together. Thick as thieves. She’s taken to pirating like a fish takes to water, although she personally doesn’t ever seem to steal anything, which baffles Jack. She’s a natural at making decisions in the heat of the moment, and suffers no man to live who thinks they can best her. Even Gibbs likes her, although he’s got business to deal with and isn’t quite always with the crew. When Jack fights beside Angelica, it’s like they were born knowing how to fight together, and it’s easy for them to put fear in their enemies’ hearts.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>When she asks about his past, he answers, but she doesn’t seem to pry too much, not really. It looks like she enjoys living in the present and in the future more than in the past, anyway. Every morning that she wakes up before he does, he catches the tail end of her prayers in Spanish and watches her do the sign of the cross (he thinks that’s what it’s called). It’s funny, Jack thinks, how she keeps her piety even in uncharted waters and while committing the deed of piracy. There’s something in the book about </span>
  <em>
    <span>thou shalt not steal</span>
  </em>
  <span>, is there not?</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>He supposes he can’t be sure, anyway, because he never paid any real attention whenever his mother tried to teach him about godliness. He couldn’t really fathom anything bigger or more powerful than the ocean. There’s something about forgiveness, about mercy, though, that he remembers that God is supposed to give to you, to everyone. Maybe he just gives it to you whenever you ask.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Jack doesn’t ask anything of God. The only thing he wants that he can’t have right now is his ship, and he’s working on that. He needs a faster ship, a better way to track the Pearl than just his compass. God can’t give him that, he doesn’t think. If He gives out mercy, He likely doesn’t give out anything tangible. He knows God doles out punishment, too. And Jack is on his way to dole that out, too, to the traitor he trusted once who left him to die — and Jack is no god, so he will show Hector Barbossa no forgiveness. Angelica knows he cared for him, once, but not all the details of that, not yet. He’ll tell her. Eventually.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Sometimes, he wants to ask her how the whole thing works, how she believes in something she can’t see or understand with such certainty. But then he thinks about it, and realizes that he believes in freedom the way she believes in God, and he can’t fathom questioning her.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. v. elements</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>SEPTEMBER 1743</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack was born on a ship, in the middle of a raging storm. It was March, and he probably wasn’t due for another month anyway. He gets his inability to stay put from both his parents: they were on their way back from Singapore, always the young adventurers, couldn’t wait a couple of months. Unexpectedly, and at perhaps the worst time, Jack was born. (Funny, how he’d eventually make those his trademarks: inconvenience and surprise.) So among the waves, surrounded by rain and wind and pirates with varying degrees of unmeasurable things like faith or bravery or determination, another future pirate was born at sea, the only place where he would always belong without question. The water would always be his element, his home, his love. The ocean was in his lungs, his veins, his brain, his heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Which is why he is convinced Angelica must have been born from fire. That’s exactly what she is: all fire, all certainty, all-encompassing energy that’ll either light up a room or destroy it, whatever she sees fit. It fascinates him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     The two of them are so alike and yet so different.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     They get into fights a lot. With anyone who will listen, who’ll get into one with them. With the world. But with each other, yes, that too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     They grew up different, almost the opposite, really. Her in the same place all her life, never knowing either of her parents, the outside world a story rather than a place to live in. Him knowing all too well who he came from, never settling in one place for too long, the world being nothing but an outside you have to survive in. Their outlooks are different, the way they see things is different, their way of carving a name and a story out for themselves is different. So they fight: over who’s right, over who’s wrong, over which battles to chase and which ones to leave alone, over what they should say and what they shouldn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     The thing about the two of them is: they have always wanted </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     More out of the world, more out of themselves, more of whatever is out there and could await them, await anyone. And the wanting, that’s what matters. That’s why they always come back to each other in the end, why at the end of the day they forgive or forget and they can open up a bottle of wine, and why an inferno and a hurricane can go back to being a flickering candle and a slow-flowing river. They can exist together, no mutually assured destruction, no need to outdo or outlast each other. They understand each other, at the end of the day. The wanting, the wanderlust.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Maybe one day, they’ll die. Go out in a blaze of glory.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Jack already died once, and it was nothing like that. Nothing close to special. He drowned. He got out of it because he is who he is, because he’d be nothing if not endlessly devoted to weaseling himself out of sticky situations.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Maybe he deserves a blazing death next time around. Or maybe it’s the only kind that will stick.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. vi. amethyst</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>28 DECEMBER 1743</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Jack and Angelica stumble across a hidden beach in the southwest of the island of Puerto Rico, after a long day of chasing information about the Pearl (she was spotted near this coast, not too long ago). They’re tired and have gathered mostly rumors and scraps, but the view is gorgeous, and they’re taking a moment to themselves before they head to a boring inn they’ve never been to before. Angelica produces two bottles of rum, and Jack kicks off his boots as he sits and leans against a rock. She joins him, pops the cork off her bottle, and they clink them together and take a swig as they sit and watch the sun head towards the horizon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I have something for you,” Jack purrs after their bottles are half- empty. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Angelica looks at him with half-closed eyes, her lashes looking ethereal as they catch the last bits of light as the sun burns out slowly, turning yellow-orange-red as it sinks under the water. “If it’s more rum, I’m already drunk enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “No, it’s better. I think.” He fumbles, a little drunkenly, and pulls something out in his pocket. He holds it in front of Angelica: it’s a gold ring, a little clunky, with a polished-round, purple gem taking up the whole face of it. “Amethyst. A stone of courage, and desire, too, if the Greeks are to be believed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     She takes it, looks it over in the dying light. She puts it on the middle finger of her right hand and stares, a hazy smile floating on her face. “Now, aren’t you a romantic.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I stole it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I assumed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “But I stole it for </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>. That’s a first.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Angelica pauses. An understanding floats in the air between them, Jack thinks, because she doesn’t say anything and instead pulls him in for a kiss, salty with sea-air and short but complete, because nothing else is needed.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“What did the Greeks say about amethysts, then? Because I don’t think I’ve heard,” she asks, and rests her head on his shoulder. Jack puts an arm around hers and gives her a quick kiss on the side of her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Don’t quite quote me on this, darling, but I think it was Dionysus who lamented over the girl who turned into white stone so much, the girl he wanted, that he spilled wine on it and it turned deep purple.”</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“And here I thought you were an expert on the Greeks.”</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“Love, I never claimed to be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack takes the last drink from Angelica’s bottle (who handed hers to him when she felt she’d had enough) and they sit in a strange, yet comfortable silence as the sky cycles from purple to blue to black, until they fall asleep.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. vii. p for pirate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>27 APRIL 1744</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I never asked you about the brand,” Angelica says, softly, running her hand over the melted-scarred-skin ‘P’ on Jack’s forearm as it peeks out from under his wrist wrap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     It’s a quiet night at sea, and only they and the night-watch crewmates are awake. Jack and Angelica sit on barrels on the foredeck of the ship, just existing. “That one’s a very long story,” he answers, a little more coldly than he’d like.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “We’ve got nothing but time, Jack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack doesn’t like telling this story in its entirety not because he isn’t okay with how it turned out, but because what he was expected to do leaves a foul taste in his mouth. But he nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I was born and raised pirate, you see. Always at sea, even before I turned sixteen,” he starts, changing the way he’s sitting to something more comfortable, more sustainable. It’s time for the long story, or for one of many, anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>4 APRIL 1736</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     By the time he was seventeen, Jack already had gone by the name Sparrow for three years, and he liked it. He was a roguish little thing with his own name and his own ship, and not long after he turned eighteen he captured a prize quite cleanly, captured a few more over the next year, built a little bit of notoriety as the young Sparrow-captain who seemed to have luck on his favor. Then he got cocky. Not long after he turned nineteen, he tried to chase an English ship bigger than he could handle. So his ship sank, and Jack got captured. He didn’t, however, have to desperately find a way to escape the noose—on shore, he was sent to the office of a rather short, and very well put-together gentleman from the East India Trading Company. No manacles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Cutler Beckett. Mister… Sparrow, isn’t it? Please sit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Captain</span>
  </em>
  <span> Sparrow, actually—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Not without a ship, it’s not,” came Beckett’s curt response, and Jack didn’t know how else to respond, so he sat down. Beckett poured two clear drinks from a bottle and handed one to Jack, but he didn’t drink it until after Beckett sipped his own. “I’ve heard about you, Sparrow. Young pirate, picking off merchants here and there, Dutch and Spanish and our very own English ships. You’re a bit troublesome, although I didn’t doubt that we’d catch you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Sure took you a while, for being so certain,” Jack said, frowning. He’d never met an East India man he could trust, and he’d met quite a few along with his father, as well as without him. Fought them, mostly. They all seemed to have an air of arrogance upon them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Beckett took a measured drink from his glass, almost not reacting to Jack’s words. He looked like he was made of stone. “Well, some of us were considering.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Considering what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “If you were enough of a threat to go after, specifically. And you weren’t — you’re here on a coincidence, Sparrow. But I said that if anyone came about you, that before hanging you for your crimes, I’d like to have a little chat with you. After all, such a young man should be given a chance, no?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack scowled. Nothing he hated more than condescension. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “It’s a good thing, Sparrow. It means we recognize that you’re good at what you do. And I’m here to offer you a deal. A full pardon for you. In return, you work for us, for the East India Trading Company.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Doing what, privateering?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “No, transporting cargo. We all win in this situation. You avoid the noose, get paid, and get a ship. I get a good seaman who knows how to avoid and outmaneuver pirates and gets me my shipments to their destinations on time. Have you ever lived an honest life, Jack? Honest job?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack rolls his eyes. “Do you think I’ve had the time?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Right. Of course not. You must be nineteen, twenty, around that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Nineteen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “See? Far too young for the noose. Take my offer, Sparrow. You’ve got plenty of time left on this earth and shouldn’t waste it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack paused. He downed the rest of his drink in one gulp, thinking. “You said I get a ship.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     And a ship he got, three days later; a fast little thing from the EITC fleet, amusingly named the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sailfish.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He could be the captain in all but name, as long as he sailed with an accepted crew of sailors and navy officers. He did well, for a couple of months, transporting small shipments of spices and chickens and linens. He was paid well enough. It was more consistent money than piracy. Beckett called him Jack, sometimes (although Jack wouldn’t dare call </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span> Cutler), like he was a family friend or something of the sort. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>12 SEPTEMBER 1736</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     In September of that year, Cutler Beckett summoned Jack to what he said was an important meeting. “You know I’ve come to trust you, right?” he asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack nodded. “Of course,” he replied, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Was something wrong?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’d like to give you a bigger shipment, for a longer sail. Better paid.” Jack raised his eyebrows. Beckett allowed himself a small amused smile before he kept going. “It’s a fairly new ship. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>Marlin</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She’s not as fast, but she’s sturdy. A real beauty. And, more importantly, you’ll get to be captain.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Officially, or just how I’ve been sailing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Officially, Sparrow. Title with papers, once you get to your destination. Everyone’s impressed with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>     Impressed with him</span>
  </em>
  <span>. That felt nice. “Deal. What’s my cargo?” Jack stood up, almost bounced, and held his hand out to Beckett, even though he was busy pouring himself a drink.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Well, the Marlin’s made to transport slaves, so that’ll be your job.” Beckett took a sip, and afterwards was about to shake Jack’s hand. Except Jack dropped it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Even Jack’s face had dropped, and he took a step away from Beckett. “You don’t expect me to—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “What’s the matter, Jack? Now, I know it’s not pleasant business or anything of the sort, but it </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> good money. It’s part of the cargo that the Company deals with. It is simply a fact of life.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack knew that his mother’s father had a slave until he freed himself, and knowing that was part of all the little pieces that had made him the sort of person who values freedom above all else. His own, yes. But others’ freedom, too. He wasn’t going to be a part of transporting </span>
  <em>
    <span>people</span>
  </em>
  <span> like that, and he supposed he hadn’t really given thought about what else the EITC was trading aside from spices. He’d lived outside of ‘real’ society for essentially his whole life, and the main thing he’d known about the Company was that they were traders to avoid getting caught by. Lawless Tortuga was lawless because every man there was free to choose his own destiny — as they should. As anyone should. A knot formed in the pit of Jack’s stomach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “That’s something I won’t do ...<em>sir</em>. I can’t sail a slave ship.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “No?” Beckett asked. He seemed genuinely confused, as far as Jack could tell, and it only made him… angrier.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Beckett paused for a minute, thinking it over. “Very well. While that’s unfortunate, I feel like I can work with you. There’s… a ship I own. The</span>
  <em>
    <span> Wicked Wench</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She needs to be upgraded, and I need to get a shipment to Havana, get a shipment back from there. No slaves, don’t worry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack said nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Jack?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     He held his hand out to Beckett. “I’ll captain the Wench.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack sailed the Wicked Wench to Havana with a storm inside his head that matched the one he sailed through during the short trip. He fell in love with the speedy ship and the whole time he waited for the new guns to be fitted he wanted to sail away with it and shoot the East India Trading Company somewhere it would hurt them, all by himself, somehow. Something to set his conscience free. (He hadn’t thought he had a conscience.) By the time he started sailing back to Jamaica, he’d made up his mind. He was going to chase the Marlin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Beckett smiled when Jack returned with the Wench, clearly proud, and had another voyage with it ready for him. Jack feigned politeness. When he stepped out of his office for a second, Jack paged through Beckett’s ledger and found the Marlin’s schedule, the sailing plans. It had set sail three days ago, but he knew the Wench was much faster. He could catch up, even if he set sail himself five days from now instead of the three that were planned. For the voyage, Jack asked for a smaller crew — “We don’t need that many people, he said, this cargo doesn’t require much. I’ll keep it out of trouble.” He identified a couple of the sailors he trusted and told them his plan, and they agreed. Beckett trusted him, and he was officially Captain Jack Sparrow, so his crew had to follow directions. So when he changed the course, they had to follow; they had to buy his story of worrying about the weather. Instead of sailing to the Antilles, he sailed past them and chased the Marlin. And he found it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>15 OCTOBER 1736</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     The fight was not easy, since Jack had to deal with fighting from within his crew, although he expected that. But he damaged the Marlin thoroughly enough, and had enough luck on his side that he got to move all of the people, all of the ‘cargo’ onto the Wench, and they could help crew the ship much faster than Jack’s skeleton crew of rogue soldiers. He didn’t know if the Marlin could make it back home, and he didn’t care. He sailed to Tortuga, instead, and almost all the people he helped free got off there. Two decided to stay on the ship. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Past that, Jack hadn’t planned anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     So he couldn’t really say he was surprised when, as he sailed, a little East India fleet surrounded him. Jack was going to go out fighting — but he got captured, without even that much damage to the Wench. And sent, in manacles this time and accompanied by an officer, right into the Captain’s quarters. An icy-cold Cutler Beckett stood next to the fire, looking larger than life. Next to him stood a knot-faced man Jack knew as Ian Mercer, an enforcer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “You </span>
  <em>
    <span>betrayed</span>
  </em>
  <span> me, Sparrow,” Beckett spat, every word pointed and sharp like a dagger. But they didn’t hurt, not really. Throwing knives that missed their target. “What’s your </span>
  <em>
    <span>excuse</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I don’t have one. I made a </span>
  <em>
    <span>choice</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I did the right thing. I don’t regret it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “You know what you’ve done, don’t you? You’ve lost me so much in profits. You’ve lost my </span>
  <em>
    <span>trust</span>
  </em>
  <span>. You’ve lost your pardon, your position. Your ship. You have lost </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’ve got my </span>
  <em>
    <span>dignity</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Jack snarled, taking a step away from Beckett. The officer holding him by the shoulder tightened his grip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Beckett narrowed his eyes. “Mercer. Please.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Mercer stepped towards Jack; without even a sign of caring he told the officer “Hold him by both shoulders, please,” and tightly held Jack’s right arm up. Beckett grabbed something from the fire and started walking towards them; Jack was too confused to do anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I want you to </span>
  <em>
    <span>understand</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Jack, that you will hang for this. But before you do, you will know that your grievous lapse in judgement cost me, and therefore, it will cost </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> more.” In a flash, he raised a red-hot iron and, and just above where the manacle rested on Jack’s right arm, he pressed it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     For a moment, everything went blank, and he felt </span>
  <em>
    <span>red</span>
  </em>
  <span>, </span>
  <em>
    <span>red-hot</span>
  </em>
  <span>, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ve-forgotten-how-to-breathe.</span>
  </em>
  <span> It smelled like burning, but worse, because he knew it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>, it was his own skin, and he probably cried out but he couldn’t really be sure if perhaps he’d forgotten how to make any sounds at all. Jack opened his eyes but couldn’t see for a second until he felt </span>
  <em>
    <span>it</span>
  </em>
  <span> being pulled away from his skin and he looked at his melted burn in the shape of a P, and he looked at Beckett’s ice-frozen face, and he understood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “For <em>pirate</em>, Jack. Even your dead body will bear it,” Beckett spat. “Harrison, you’re free to go. Mercer, follow me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     The officer that had been holding Jack let go, and without the support and still reeling Jack stumbled a bit before Mercer grabbed him by the shoulder — his left shoulder, at least — and followed Beckett out of the Captain’s quarters, dragging Jack along.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>27 APRIL 1744</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I didn’t…” Angelica’s eyes are wide, and she runs a finger over the letter P on Jack’s arm. Miraculously, he doesn’t flinch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “It’s not the end of the story, love. Not quite yet.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. viii. thirteen years</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>15 OCTOBER 1736</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     They dragged Jack to the main railing, the Wicked Wench in plain view, almost intact. No one in it but the bodies of Jack’s dead sailors. The fleet surrounded the ship, dwarfing her. Jack felt horrible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Jack Sparrow, you used this ship against the law. You used her as a pirating vessel.” Beckett’s voice rang out loud and clear, but Jack was having trouble focusing on it over the throbbing pain in his right arm, so he didn’t hear anything else until Beckett said, “So you will watch her burn.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “What? No. She’s — that’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>your ship,</span>
  </em>
  <span> isn’t she?” Jack couldn’t justify the panic in his voice, but he somehow felt like if he watched this ship be completely destroyed, a piece of him would be destroyed right with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Beckett glared. “She was. Then you stole her. I know you saw this ship as yours. So she will burn, just like you will hang.” And he gave the orders to fire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Watching the Wicked Wench go up in flames felt the same way the brand had. That was his ship, that was — he was going to go down with his ship. Better that than hanged. With the sense of rage inside him, he stepped on fingers and elbowed stomachs and broke noses until he managed to break free and jumped into the water. His right arm burned as it hit the water, and he swallowed water when he yelled out in pain. He felt the water in his nose, in his mouth, in his lungs, but didn’t stop kicking. He’d always been a strong swimmer. He’d reach his ship.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     A couple of gunshots rang out until he heard a condescending “Leave him. He’ll die.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     And he did. Or maybe almost.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack came to on the deck of his ship, underwater but still breathing air, still manacled. He wasn’t alone, but the two sailors next to him were dead and didn’t respond when he called for them. He’d never felt such an extreme level of nerves before. Everything was wrong, too dark, too blue, too real.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     He heard footsteps before he saw him: a man that was half-man, half-ocean; a face with a tentacled bear and claws rather than hands. Jack couldn’t help but stick his tongue out in disgust. Davy Jones?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Well, well, well. Look what we have here. A young one. Tell me, child, do you fear death?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack frowned. Sure, he could say he did, but the question seemed loaded. And this wasn’t death.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Cat got your tongue?” the tentacled man asked, and took a drag from his pipe. “Pah. Doesn’t matter. You can still hear me. Do you fear the nothingness, the unknown abyss? The punishment for your sins, the reckoning for everything you’ve done? With me, you have a choice. Postpone that moment of truth. Give your soul to me, serve on the Dutchman for one hundred years.” With his claw, he broke the chain connecting Jack’s manacles together. The appearance of goodwill.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Sometimes, Jack’s brain worked on overtime. Often, Jack knew which words to use to convince people. Always, Jack was the kind of person who would rather get out of trouble in the moment and deal with the reckoning later. So Jones’ offer appealed to him. But this postmonement needed to be postponed, and a pang of courage took over, and instead of agreeing, he asked, “Are you open to negotiations?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Davy Jones laughed an ugly laugh. “Negotiations! You’re a brave one.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack talked fast, knowing he was short on time. “I — I want my ship. I want to sail on my ship. I didn’t get to, and here I am, obviously. I’ll sail on your ship, I’ll give you my soul for the hundred years, hundred and a half, whatever, it doesn’t matter. But first, I’m asking you to raise my ship and let me be the captain. You seem powerful. Davy Jones, ain’t you? I bet you could do that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     The sea-creature sailors around Davy Jones looked at each other in shock. Jones’s face didn’t change. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Thirteen years. Just give me thirteen years to captain my ship. And then you’ll get your soul back — my soul back. A guaranteed soul. Doesn’t that sound nice?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack heard the whispers amongst the soldiers, but he kept his eyes on Jones’s pipe. Watching. Waiting. Cheating death had to be an endeavor. Until in a sudden movement, Jones extended his hand-claw out to him and Jack couldn’t help but jump. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Thirteen years it is, then. You get your ship back. And I’ll come back to reap your soul.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack gingerly shook the claw offered to him. “Deal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     So Captain Jack Sparrow came back from the dead, with his new-old ship now burnt-black and renamed, quite appropriately, the Black Pearl.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>27 APRIL 1744</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I know it’s not easy to believe,” Jack starts, holding his hands up in his own defense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “No, no, I... I believe you. I’ve seen stranger,” says Angelica, her voice quiet. “Just... thirteen years?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “It’s been about ten, but not quite that yet. Don’t worry, darling. I find my way out of everything, even death.”</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“No — well, I know you mean that, but I mean — thirteen? Not even fifteen?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack’s brain stalls and he feels like an idiot, although not <em>hurt</em>. “Shush. It was the first number I thought of that was over ten and seemed reasonable.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “And do you have a plan, then? For Davy Jones?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Not yet. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Besides,” Jack reasons, “I was only captain of the Pearl for two years, anyway. That’s got to count for something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     It feels eerily quiet as Angelica nods. And it feels like ages before she speaks again, and all she says is, “I’m going to sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack wonders if she’s going to pray for his soul. She’d be the first in a long time.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. ix. ahead of time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>JUNE 1744</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack is not a coward, but he has always been the kind of person who would rather avoid a fight whenever he can. Simply put: he does not have eternal life, so he would like to keep his non-eternal one for as long as possible, and he’s no stranger to near-death. Besides, he died once already. At least mostly. He’s not sure what kind of mortal state Davy Jones’ Locker keeps you in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     For Angelica, he thinks, staying in a fight is easier. Maybe it’s got something to do with how she believes, wholeheartedly, on a life after this one. That would make it easier to die, Jack figures, if you’ve got something to look forward to afterwards. Generally, though, she is just straight-up brave: she says what she wants, she gets what she wants. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     She plans ahead, but not the way Jack does. He sets little traps, seeds half-truths for others to water, movies things around so that everything is as close as possible to how he wants them to be. His plans always have defenses to hide in, escape routes, loopholes for him to jump through. Hers make sure that others don’t. So they work together well, because she’ll ask him how he’d respond or how he’d prepare, and she adjusts. Mends the plans at the seams. By now she’s a much better swordsman than he is — well, she’s a swords</span>
  <em>
    <span>woman</span>
  </em>
  <span> — and almost as good a liar. They’re a team for the ages, a pair to be remembered, to be reckoned with. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack doesn’t mind as much as he thinks maybe he should, when the reckoning is with each other. He is, after all, often stupid, and she is often unnecessarily obstinate. They both have a tendency to go a little too far, in everything they do. Jack is never surprised when anyone wants to kill him, even if just for a couple of seconds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Sometimes, Jack will pull out his compass when they’re not talking, and he calms down when it points at her. (Then it’ll point in the general direction of where the Pearl must be, and that calms him down, too.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>20 NOVEMBER 1744</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Jack, what’s your plan? We can’t keep chasing this if you don’t have one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “We’re doing alright. Just… bad luck.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “We’re chasing rumors and legends of your ship and when they’re not true we get nothing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “We don’t get </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span>. We don’t stop chasing prizes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Angelica makes an exasperated noise. “But we </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> keep going through the motions of the same thing, over and over. Who’s seen the Pearl. Where was it last. But if it leaves no survivors, like they keep saying, then the stories are secondhand from God-knows-where and we can’t ever be sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “It’s better than nothing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “How can you —”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>faith</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Angelica, that’s what it is,” he snaps. “I sold my soul for that ship. My soul </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> that ship,” and it’s the first time he’s said that out loud but he knows he means it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Angelica blinks, searches Jack’s face. After a long pause, she sighs. “Jack, I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Don’t be,” he snaps back, then takes a deep breath as well. “If I want it this bad I should plan it out, no?” She’s right, like she often is, except this time around he hates it because any plan he makes seems futile, even more so than relying on the luck of the draw.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “So make one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     He deflates, leans against the wall and sits on a chest, trying to think, scouring his brain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “If the Pearl’s fast, you need to be fast too, no?”</span>
</p><p><span>     Jack thinks and thinks and thinks of all the ships he </span><em><span>knows</span></em> <em><span>about</span></em><span> that are fast enough and won’t sink at the first hit from her cannons and comes up blank… except for a ship that’s not quite finished yet. A ship that is still a promise, a plan. But one that he could work with, meant to be finished within the year. One that he could probably figure out how to steal, if he thinks about it hard enough.</span></p><p>
  <span>     “Actually, I heard they’re building a ship called the Interceptor.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. x. nassau</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>2 MAY 1745</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     Their ship is on its way to Nassau when something dangerous between Jack and Angelica starts bubbling like a boiling-hot volcano. Lately, the two have seemed to be opposing natural forces, two old gods fighting for their turf; frustrated at each other, at everything. They spend two days fighting and two days without talking, rinse and repeat, and the crew seems to walk around them with the same wide berth they’d give a shark they spot in the water. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack is filling out a ledger with the quartermaster when Angelica walks into the chart room and stabs a dagger into the table. Message received. She has his attention. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’m getting off at Nassau. I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>resigning</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she snaps, before he can open his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     The quartermaster stands up and gets out, clear in his face that he wants nothing to do with this. Jack doesn’t look up from the ledger, unsure what to say, what to do. He’s blindsided, but at the same time he can’t help thinking, </span>
  <em>
    <span>of course, of course</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Another betrayal. The same kind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “You heard me, didn’t you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack gives her a curt nod and turns in her direction, his face twisted into a bitter frown. Something is building up inside him, a storm of anger and sadness and regret and so many other things he can’t (or won’t) put words to. He stands up, too; paces around. “I thought — I thought you always </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> to sail everywhere, see everything. Not stay stuck in an island,” is what comes out. It’s pathetic, frankly. It’s not what he really wants to say, or what he means, or what he feels, or anything close to it. He feels idiotic. These are empty words, but they’re all he can manage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “But we </span>
  <em>
    <span>haven’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> done that, Jack! Not really! We’re caught in a cycle and you’re like — you’re a snake eating its own tail, convinced that if it takes one more bite his hunger will be a thing of the past. But that isn’t how it works.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     He feels like a sinking ship caught in a whirlpool, nowhere to go but the bottom of the sea to drown. He’s angry at her for wanting to leave him, but most of all, he’s angry at her for being right. He’s still nowhere. He’s still drifting. But now drifting, instead of feeling like a thing that just happens to even the best of us, feels like a crime.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “If I could just —”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     She cuts him off. “If you could just what? Christ, Jack —”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’m going to get her back—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “How do you know! How can you know? You don’t know where that damn thing is, you don’t know if it’s still up, you don’t—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “So you can have faith in things you can’t see, but I can’t?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     He knows it before the words are fully out of his mouth. They’re playing a dangerous game. They both are. Their words aren’t words anymore, they’re daggers, itching to get sharper and sharper. They’re in a duel that doesn’t end at first blood, one whose end is imminent and will end up hurting them both. Jack knows this, but he can’t back down from this fight. Any fight but this one. He’s not sure why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “That’s not what I — you know what, if you weren’t going to take your own fucking life seriously, maybe you should have stayed down in the locker!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Well, I’m sorry I didn’t plan ahead quite so far ahead when I was </span>
  <em>
    <span>nineteen</span>
  </em>
  <span>! And </span>
  <em>
    <span>dying</span>
  </em>
  <span>!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “You’ve had time since!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     She slams her hand on the table and an empty bottle rolls off. Jack stomps on the bottle, hears it shatter into pieces, as if it’ll give him anything useful. “I —”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “You know what, Jack? It doesn’t matter. It’s just a ship. And you don’t think. You never do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     It’s just a ship. She knows it isn’t, she knows it means more.  “You know what that </span>
  <em>
    <span>ship</span>
  </em>
  <span> is to me, Angelica, you know what it means, you know what </span>
  <em>
    <span>happened</span>
  </em>
  <span> —”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “You don’t care about anything, or anyone, other than yourself and that damn ship.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “If I don’t find my ship I’ll have wasted </span>
  <em>
    <span>years</span>
  </em>
  <span> and years of my life in a search for something that I had, that I got for </span>
  <em>
    <span>myself</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and that someone took from me!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Then you can do it yourself, because I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>done</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     She storms off and slams the door behind her. The dagger she left is still on the table. Jack stares and stares and stares at it for what feels like forever until he finally grabs it and throws it at the door, done with everything, watching it land and stay there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     He doesn’t care about anything other than himself or the ship, she said, and a while ago she might have let her have it, he might have let himself believe it, but right now, he knows it’s not really true. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack cares, but people still leave him. Maybe he just cares all wrong. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     There are four days left on their way to port. They don’t say a single thing to each other the whole time. It must be pride, it must be anger, it must be stubbornness, it must be something. But </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> won’t let him say anything, so he just doesn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>6 MAY 1745</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     As much as he’s furious at her, as much as some part of him wants to kill her, as much as he’s bitter and hurt and betrayed, he can’t help but call out for her one more time as she walks away, probably for good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Angelica.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     There’s a pause from her, and he has something dangerously close to hope for a second.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Fuck off, Jack.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Ah. So no hope, then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack doesn’t think he’s begged for anything before, not even for his life, not quite. But he wants to turn into a beggar right now, to ask her to please stay, stay because he’s in — He’s in. He is in. Even his brain stops, won’t let him finish the sentence. He will not say what he is in. He will not think about what he is in. It’s danger, really, what he’s in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     He watches her walk away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Jack sulks for two days, then pushes everything down. It’s time to pretend nothing ever happened, that he is untouchable. Always has been. After that, he only sulks in private. He makes plans to gift some strange things to Tia Dalma in return for some stories, to visit Scarlett in Tortuga. Keep himself busy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Angelica didn’t take off the ring, though. That comforts him.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. xi. sparrow-bird</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>10 MARCH 1746</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>     Sparrows don’t seem like much of a threat to anyone. They’re quite the common thing, a fast-flying little brown bird that no one would give a second thought to if they saw it, often confused for other birds. But the birds are smart, and they get aggressive when it comes to what they care about. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Today Jack is twenty-nine, which means he chose this name fifteen years ago. He was fourteen years old and already knew that he would never be the same as his father, so he had to have another name. Not Teague, like the Pirate Lord. (Jack is a Pirate Lord today, too, but he didn’t earn it. His father just got tired.) He chose Sparrow because he was never going to live up to anything anyone could possibly want to expect from him, because he was strange and short for his age and always trying to observe the world from a vantage point, because it was the only way he got an advantage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     He chose it because he knows he’s smart. Not smart like those who shut themselves in, not smart like a man of letters or a researcher or anything of the like. He’s smart like a bird. He keeps his eye out for chances to get what he wants, he stays out of trouble when he can, and when trouble finds him, he knows what advantages he has and doesn’t have over his opponent. He’s always thinking of the odds in his favor and against him, and he’s not afraid of taking risks if he thinks it’s all going to work out. If he didn’t, he’d be stupid. He’d never get anything he wanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     He runs his hand over his tattoo, just over his brand. He got it when he was seventeen and he knew his name was just right, a bird flying over the horizon, just how he always chases it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     One thing about sparrows: they only live long if they’re around humans. They don’t quite know how to survive if they’re far from them. This is something Jack does not want to accept about himself.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. SHORT UPDATE NOTE</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>basically, i haven't been able to write / update because i've been moving! i will update more once i've settled a bit more, don't worry, i won't abandon this. :)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The fun thing about this franchise is that there's so many gaps in time canon that I can do with it whatever I want. The other fun thing is that it's been my biggest interest since 2005, so I care excessively.</p><p>If you would like to talk to me or yell with me, especially about potc, find me on twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/flor_demaga">@flor_demaga</a> or on tumblr at <a href="https://piratechaos.tumblr.com/">piratechaos</a>. (And if you hit me up there, you can ask to see my insane timeline.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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